Tiger Woods's enamel of divinity cracks – and the myth of perfection is exposed

Tiger Woods in grumpy mode – the perfection American does not exist.
Photograph: Stew Milne/AP

The problem is that sport writes these fake narratives of human flawlessness. Correction. In the case of Eldrick "Tiger" Woods that myth was built by an industry of image architects, with the connivance of the golfer, for money, dude. For money.

It is the inauthenticity of the original Woods persona that fascinates, not the infidelities, which are interesting only as part of the celeb cycle of crash and burn. Since independence, the most powerful country on earth has searched for "the perfect American". They won't find him, or her. Not even behind the security gates of an upscale Florida community.

Woods is a master golfer, but he is a construct, too. He is sport's riposte to the Hollywood child star. And we all know how that tends to end up. He was not a boy who found by accident that he had a talent for belting white balls over the horizon. He was his father's project. The obsession he willingly absorbed from old Earl mutated into a superman complex.

Woods could be world sport's No1 global superstar but hide from his public. He could emanate charisma yet say nothing of interest to his disciples. He could become the first athlete to earn $1 billion yet treat the galleries with no more warmth than gatecrashers at his wedding.

All this, he managed to pull off until the enamel of divinity cracked. Until, in other words, he arrived at his Monica Lewinsky moment, when the sheer banality of the revelation made us wince. Tiger Woods is not an android: read all about it.

The next phase: the clipboard clutchers will urge him to sit down with Oprah and pour it all out. Have a good cry, apologise for the "hurt" he caused. And there is doubtless plenty down there, in Florida, in case anyone should mistake this tale for one big water‑cooler joke. American columnists are having a fine old time speculating whether Woods will emerge from this "a better man" (there's always an upside to trauma, across the pond). A better question is whether we will. Whether we can escape the infantile delusion that being good at sport turns you into a paragon.

Until Woods, no modern sportsman had pulled off the feat of being a god while coming over as a borderline misanthrope. Convention dictates that you engage with the game, the audience, like Jack Nicklaus or Muhammad Ali. Today's icons defer to the sharks and lawyers who crowd them. Team Tiger will set the tone, not the guy with the talent. So Woods will float into The Open, say, like a US president, surrounded by goons and say-nothing gofers.

No wonder actions and consequences became detached. Even talking became a transaction. Justifying his use of an official website to make announcements, he wrote on it: "It's a way for me to communicate, because as everyone knows I'm a little bit shy and a touch guarded at times, and this is a way for me to express myself in a way that I normally don't."

Nothing to do with hits, then. Golf writers are a perfectly sensible bunch to talk to. Woods just chose not to. He attached commercial value to his words. So all the while he was popularising golf, turning it into an Olympic sport, he was also waging war on its spirit. In majors, there is the tournament, which the rest of the players contest, and there is the Woods yomp: a quick-march of scowls.

Some of my most cherishable professional memories are of following Woods during the final round of an Open, at St Andrews, especially, when his brilliance seems in tune with the game's traditions. To be sucked towards the 18th green and the Royal and Ancient's clubhouse is to be tugged by majesty. This is the only way to connect with him: go back to the gift, the skill, because the rest of it will put you off.

In his excruciating mea culpa – another carbuncle of bad advice – Woods says sorry "to all those who have supported me over the years". Why be contrite to people who have no right to an apology for something that has happened in someone else's private life?

There is sport, and then there is the Disneyworld of image that people who make fortunes from it spin to us. In the end these drones are powerless to stop Goodfellas pathos enveloping the lives of the famous. It shouldn't have required $3,200 worth of damage to a fire hydrant and a car to alert us to the reality that top-level sport sees us all as consumers, ready to buy its myths. Remember: they're no better or worse than the rest of us.

Double trouble offers a triumph for Ancelotti

Luiz Felipe Scolari thought it unworkable – or maybe he just disliked Didier Drogba – but Chelsea have mastered the rare trick of fielding two world-class centre‑forwards in the same side. Not forwards, or strikers generally, but No9s. Drogba and Nicolas Anelka are the most formidable pairing in world club football.

Productive partnerships are legion. Lineker and Beardsley, Shearer and Sheringham, Romário and Stoichkov, Cole and Yorke. You could fill a page with them. But coaches have mostly given up on the idea of finding two old school centre‑forwards to smash defences. Five-man midfields and the modern need for all 11 players to defend when possession is surrendered are part of the explanation. Few sides these days can afford to leave two predators to read magazines in the opposition's half when their own goal is under attack. Chelsea, though, have coached extra mobility from Anelka and Drogba and have a strong defensive base to support their double strike force.

All this confirms Carlo Ancelotti's reputation as a coach who examines his resources and draws the very best from what he has. To enthuse two such moody performers is a triumph. One wrong move and either could switch off. For now, though, they have revived a dying art.